


The Sous Chef

by misreall



Category: The Night Manager (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Drinking, F/M, Food Porn, Kissing, Light Bondage, Mutual Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Smoking, Tenderness, Too much coffee, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:08:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29708649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misreall/pseuds/misreall
Summary: Bartender Brede Hebert needed a second chance and change of venue to get her life back on track, both things restauranteur Richard Roper had given her at his Michelin starred London establishment.  The day Jonathan Pine started working in the kitchen she knew that there was something wrong with him, even as there seemed to be something that could be very, very right between them.
Relationships: Jonathan Pine/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 57
Kudos: 51





	1. An Hors d'oeuvre

“I absolutely, fucking hate you.”

“I know that, darling, but still, I thought she looked rather good. For a female,” Corky said, taking a sip from his espresso Romano without looking up from the Times, spread open like a bedsheet across the table where he was working on the crossword puzzle. In ink of course. 

A slight twist to his upper lip said he was not pleased with the result of that sip, and he snapped in the air. “Juliano,  _ che cazzo _ ?” 

From the bar, the daytime bartender who was restocking looked up, shook his head and refused to respond, knowing Corky was being a bitch not because there was anything wrong with the perfect espresso and twist of lemon he had given him, but because he was coming up with an excuse not to respond to Jonathan.

The quiet hours of the morning in the front of the house, between the end of the deliveries and the beginning of the set up for lunch service, had always been Jonathan’s second favorite time of day in almost any of the restaurants he had worked at. While there was still a lot of work going on -  _ mis-en-places _ being set up, last-minute menu and scheduling changes, meat prep, and the like - it was also the breath before battle, the time when though you knew your strategy would not survive engagement with the enemy, you still had hope.

That he was ruining the peace of it for Corky gave him a small, vindictive pleasure. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be doing… something?” Corky waved in the direction of the door to the kitchen, and then to the one leading outside. 

“No, my first event isn’t until tomorrow. And I have nothing planned for today other than drinks at four, and dinner at  _ Gabrielle’s _ . So,” Jonathan pulled out a chair and sat across from his least favorite friend, leaning on the table, “I have all of the time I need to be certain you know what an absolute bastard you are.”

At that moment, one of the  _ commis _ came out from the back with a cappuccino that he placed at Jonathan’s elbow, three perfect, tiny biscotti fanned out on the side of the saucer, “Chef,” he said, “from Chef Esposito. She asked if you have time, would you want to come and see the kitchen.”

Not looking from where he was eye-fucking Corky - no, not eye-fucking because that might be fun for Cork, so maybe eye-kicking - Jonathan nodded, “Thank Anni for me, and tell her I would be delighted.”

When they were alone again there was silence as Corky continued his crossword and Jonathan took a sip of the coffee. The foam was exactly the correct balance, delicate and yet with almost a touch of bounce, and the beans were deeply roasted but without a touch of burn. In his week in New Orleans he had found that coffee was treated with deep seriousness, more so than in any other city he had been in the US, save maybe Seattle and San Francisco. 

He dipped a pecan biscotti that had been barely brushed with praline into it. On its own, it might have been too sweet, but the bitterness of the coffee’s roast balanced it beautifully. 

The same was true of the vanilla bean scented biscuit, and the traditional one.

Jonathan ate them all appreciatively, but his carefully schooled expression of bland anger never changed, and his eyes never left Corky’s face. 

Corky, himself an old campaigner, sat under fire with perfect  _ sang froid _ , other than his lips now and then twisting when he forgot and distractedly took a sip of espresso. Finally, finishing the puzzle, he sighed, “I suppose if you want something done right…” taking his cup he went behind the long, zinc-topped bar, shooing the bar-back who was cutting limes out of the way and set about making himself a proper coffee.

While the grand old brass espresso maker, a beautiful, most likely based on Jonathan’s experience, very cranky antique that was one of the central design elements of the otherwise minimalist restaurant was hissing away, Corkoran chose to address the question of his bastardry. 

“My darling, I could lie, and tell you that when I invited you to our little…” he waved a demi-tasse spoon in the air, trying to think of the word he wanted, “symposia, that it slipped my mind that you could easily run into our Brede, and that it might be awkward, but we both know that would be a lie. A rather sloppy one, which we both know the better of me. I _ much _ more simply  _ rather _ hoped that you two might either mend fences or if not that behave like grown-ups. Since she is an American, and you are you, I should have known it was a faint hope indeed. There!” 

He took a sip. “That is a proper fucking espresso! Why did I hire so many bloody Italians if I have to do this sort of thing for myself?”

That the number of Italians working at Annabella’s was two - the chef and the bartender he had just berated - and that almost all of the rest of the staff were New Orleans natives and black, mattered less to Corky than his ability to complain about what he wanted to complain about. 

Nor did it matter to him that there were few people he had met in his life that were more adult than Jonathan Pine. Calm, cool under fire, one of the only chefs famous for never losing his temper no matter how deep in the weeds his staff may find themselves. 

Save in one infamous incident that was legendary in professional kitchens from London to Hong Kong to Cairo. 

Jonathan prided himself on his demeanor, on people seeing what he needed them to see and nothing more. Other than Brede. And maybe Corky.

Which was why, he thought with a sigh, Corky was possibly right this one time. Certainly, he wasn’t feeling particularly adult at the moment. 

The sight of Brede Hebert at the opening party for the Stories from the Kitchen 2018 conference the night before had put him back on his heels. He hadn’t planned on attending, still badly jet-lagged from his flight from Edinburgh, most of his clothes creased from his luggage, all Jonathan had wanted was a quick meal in the well-regarded restaurant at his hotel and sleep. The moment he had stepped out of the terminal at Armstrong International the deep, damp heat of the Louisiana air and the stink of oil and exhaust had nearly knocked him out, only the arctic blast of the taxi’s air conditioning and the sound of the driver’s cell phone conversation in Yoruba, a language he had not yet learned, had revived him enough to not nod off on the way to the Central Business District.

Though he had been to the US any number of times he had never been to New Orleans. The old vine-covered trees, worn-out houses, massive above-ground cemeteries, and at once oppressive and sensual funk of the air had elements of the Caribbean, Marseilles, Brooklyn, Brazil, Nigeria and, most oddly, Dublin. 

Yet was nothing like any of them at the same time.

“You’re losing your mind,” he thought to himself, rubbing both big hands over his face and through his hair, trying to shake himself awake, planning on skipping the meal and going straight to bed.

But Corky had been waiting in the lobby when his Uber pulled in, giving him a decidedly American hug, and not letting Pine get a word in edgewise as he insisted he had to at least put in an appearance at the fete.

Since Corky who had been the one to arrange for Jonathan to give one of the key presentations, earning him a hefty fee, money Pine needed having been between kitchens for longer than he had been in his working life, he let himself be persuaded, exhausted or not. While he took a quick shower, politely refusing Corkoran’s offer to wash his back, while the concierge saw to having his blue suit made presentable. 

When he saw the crush of people he wished he hadn’t let himself be persuaded. Hundreds of cooks, bartenders, waiters, restaurant owners, managers, and the other hangers-on of the food trade like suppliers, producers, writers, celebrity chefs, and the like were jammed together, dressed in everything from formal evening wear to band t-shirts and jeans, to even a few still wearing their whites and clogs having come directly from their kitchens. 

Still, Jonathan steeled his shoulders, told himself he would go once around the room so he would have time to shake hands with the familiar faces and let Corky introduce him to a few new ones. Then bed, hopefully for more than just a few hours. His internal clock, eccentric and difficult after living so many places around the world, tended to wake him at dawn most days no matter how hard he tried to sleep in.

The ballroom of the Roosevelt Hotel was elegant enough, with cream carpeting and high ceilings, and the various food and drink stations around the massive space had been supplied by some of the best restaurants in a town that took its food very seriously and were now showing off for their international guests. Chefs cooking for other chefs could be counted on to come up with the impossible, the daring, and the outrageous. 

Jonathan was so tired he had almost no appetite. He tried some shrimp that had been wrapped in parmesan noodles that were then fried and served with a black pepper and garlic infused oil, which he thought was good but needed acid, and some naan with stuffing based on the flavors of a classic Pho that was so good it almost woke him up. 

All of the while, Corky had been introducing him around, in a whirl of names, but eventually peeled off, seeing someone he needed to talk to, knowing Pine could fend for himself. By the time he had made it halfway through the room, he had been given private numbers by at least a half dozen chefs who wanted to treat him to meals at their restaurants, or any place else he might want.

He had smiled thinly and nodded. It wasn’t unusual for cooks to want to feed, and impress, each other, but his case was extreme and special.

The man who had destroyed Richard Roper would never need to pay for a drink or meal anywhere in the world ever again. 

Stopped in the middle of the floor with Salah Nabeel who he used to work with at the Nefertiti Hotel, Dag Nieland who he met in passing in Zermatt, and Eliza Johnson who ran one of the most popular kitchens in Atlanta and was an old friend of Corky’s, for a few minutes Jonathan had almost been glad he had come. Salah was a born storyteller, and he was in rare form as he and Dag were competing in crazy, impossible kitchen tales, showing off for Eliza, who was gorgeous, and clearly flirting back as she tossed her long, beaded braids, laughed at every bad joke, telling them to “stop their foolishness,” while clearly wanting them to keep going.

Then, in one of those lulls of silences that happen in even the most raucous crowd, Jonathan heard another voice he knew. 

Adrenalin and something else spiked through him, though he hazarded that unless someone noticed his knuckles going white where he squeezed the long empty teacup he was holding no one would notice anything had changed with him.

“Excuse me a moment,” he said to the others, with a casual laugh, “I need a drink if I am going to have to listen to more of this nonsense.”

Behind the mixed drinks station, her natural habitat, Brede was in the midst of mixing something and easily sorting the unruly mob of off-duty kitchen pirates, wastrels, and mercenaries who would have elbowed each other gleefully out of the way for a glass of plonk if it were free and thus would normally commit bloody murder for a top-shelf craft cocktail. Carrying on the light, probably borderline inappropriate banter that was part of her work persona, she filled a cocktail shaker from several bottles and did something with garnishes. 

Jonathan had always loved watching Brede work, graceful and easy in her unconscious competence. 

With a lazy smile, she pointed at three seemingly random members of the crowd, simultaneously placing three coupes on top of the bar, along with a rocks glass a bit to the side. Then, lifting the shaker, she gave it hell, her arms and long-fingered hands were strong, and scarred from years of cutting fruit and picking up broken glass. 

He had loved to kiss and nip those scars, to hold her hands up and run a fingertip over each one, asking if she remembered where and when they came from. 

Sometimes she would answer. 

Sometimes she would close her fingers about his, and roll him over atop her, kissing the questions away.

When the dew that formed on the shaker had turned to frost, she deftly filled the coupes with a golden brown drink, then topped each with a perfect twist of orange, making a conjuror's gesture with her hand that they were ready to be taken by three fortunate chosen ones. 

As they scrambled for their drinks, she picked up a bottle of Balvenie and poured two fingers, adding two or three drops of water from a little carafe. Perfect. Though it took less fuss, it was made with equal care.

Then, over the tops of the heads of her other customers, Brede caught his eye and held out the scotch, mouthing, “Hi, Johnny.”

Pine hated being called Johnny, but he’d never gotten her to stop. 

And  _ that, _ he found, he rather liked. 

He was going to kill Corky with his bare, fucking hands, he thought, trembling at the idea of taking that drink from Brede, or having to speak to her, of what he might say. He needn't have worried, however, once he took the heavy crystal glass from her, she turned back to the rest of her customers. “Alright, since most of you aren’t from here, I suppose I need to make a round of sazeracs, don’t I?” Her throaty, clever voice was professional, and it was like he wasn’t even there as far as she was concerned, focused on her work.

Now, sitting across from his friend and nemesis, Jonathan found himself too tired to commit murder, having slept like shit. Normally he slept like a baby when he was in a new place, but Brede’s voice, her face, the knowledge that she was somewhere in the same city he was, possibly in bed herself, possibly not alone, had haunted his thoughts and his body equally. 

“I mean, darling, you knew she was from here, so is it such a surprise?” Corky was now deep in working out a seating chart for the SFK event that was being held at Annabella’s that night, and so again refused to look at him. An old trick, to pretend he cared less about Pine’s response than he did.

“I would have expected a little warning. But then, that would have been stupid of me, as I am guessing my being here is part of some ridiculous matchmaking plan of yours, isn’t it, you old granny.”

Corky smiled, still not looking up as he erased a notation and changed it, “Now there is the bright boy I knew and lusted after in London.”

“You hated me in London. Hated me for how much Roper was taken with me.”

Now Corky looked up, a serious look, an almost frightening look on his elfin face, “Only at first, my darling. You are lucky that I changed my stripes and came to recognise your manifold charms, or things might not have gone your way back then.”

“I know that. And now you are paying me back for those early days, aren’t you?”

The smile was back, making Corky look as harmless as he was not. “I might punish you, but Brede I have always liked. No, I am just throwing the two of you together to see what happens. You know how bored I get, my love.”

  
  



	2. Amuse Bouche

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brede can't sleep.

He smelled good. 

It wasn’t merely the scent of whatever he had been cooking - his big, deft hands scented with astringent quality fresh rosemary that he had stripped from the stem quickly, yet with delicacy, so he wouldn’t bruise the leaves, the perfumy green of minutely chopped thyme, overlaid with sticky garlic, or perhaps a little sweet sherry that had run down his fingers, or cracked black pepper that woke up the nose and sea salt that made you wonder what his skin would taste like on the tip of your tongue.

Nor was it the citrus smell of his cologne and of the lemon juice he used in a futile attempt to get rid of the succulent odors coming from those long fingers and hard palms. Though Brede liked how those smelled. 

_ Jonathan Pine  _ smelled good. 

Brede would inhale him. His hair, which he washed with shampoo that smelled faintly of cloves, the place under his ear, then the corner of his mouth, where his breath was kissed by the apricot and honey of the scotch he preferred.

Even when he was wearing his chef’s whites at the end of a rough night, the kind when he barely made it out of the weeds, so they were damp with sweat and reeking of burned seafood, cooking oil that had gone smoky and rancid, dairy left out too long, and all of the other things that could go wrong in a kitchen, underneath it all there was the smell of the warmth of good sleep, peppermint, and, though he thought she was mocking him when she said it, to Brede the smell of a perfectly brewed cup of tea.

When he was naked, it was all but unbearable. 

Fortunately, when they were naked together he didn’t mind if she nuzzled and rubbed her face against his side, against his thigh, anywhere really. With a small, slightly helpless laugh, he would stretch himself out, grasping the headboard, “Go ahead,” he would say, shaking his head.

It took effort to ignore his dick. 

Laying her cheek to the hardness of his stomach, Brede would smile back at him, meeting those unreadable eyes, then reaching up to pull one of the curls that had grown out a bit, “You are way too pretty for no one to have worshipped before, Mister.”

Shaking his head again, he sat up and pulled her across his legs, his dick hard between them, and kissed her. Mouth open and teasing, barely dipping his tongue into her, teasing hers, teasing and teasing until she grasped all of those now messy curls in her fists and made him stop playing.

One of his hands slid over her thigh, barely brushing her-

“Mrraowwwpuuuuuoaw!!!!”

Brede sat up in bed, her heart racing and her whole body prickled with adrenaline, sex suddenly the furthest thing from her mind despite the dream she had been having.

Again, a demonic noise came from the floor near the foot of her bed.

One of her cats was sitting on her bedside table, looking boredly towards where his idiot brother was doing something annoying. 

Brede’s blankets had been kicked off but the sheet was still wrapped partly around her, which was what Widdershins had gotten himself tangled in, screaming at it, her, and everything else that he needed help. Because he was the gentlest, dumbest cat she had ever met, once she pushed the covers off of his head he stopped and calmly waited for her to unwrap him and gently remove the claws that had gotten snagged as well.

“You are a dumbass,” she said, giving him a kiss on the head before setting him on the floor. With a flounce of his fluffy white tail Widdershins was off to the kitchen, followed by Grimalkin, both of them probably assuming she would feed them since she was up and that clearly meant it was morning.

Actually, they were both pretty stupid cats, Brede thought, sitting on one of the chairs near the window that looked over a tiny courtyard. Her apartment was in the made-over slave quarters of the smallest creole mansion in the Faubourg Marigny, with a bathroom was smaller than most closets, a kitchen that was less than an afterthought and had one cabinet and barely enough counter space to hold an open cookbook, and only one room otherwise, but it was cheap, on high ground, and in a building owned by a friend so she had a pretty good chance of not losing it.

Unless a developer decided to buy the property to turn into a restaurant or an Airbnb. It happened all of the time and in neighborhoods a lot less tourist-attractive than the Marigny.

There was a light patter of rain on the endless ferns, leathery palm leaves, and overgrown jessamine that climbed the building and hung in swaths everywhere. Normally she would pull open the doors on the shallow balcony and let the sound put her back to sleep, but the possibility that the dream she had been dragged out of might start again - and that she wasn’t sure if she wanted that or not - kept her from getting back into bed. 

Instead, she reached into the large, sack purse that she had dropped next to the chair upon getting home from the opening event of Stories from the Kitchen and pulled out her phone.

It was four a.m.

Perfect.

After one ring, Corky picked up, his voice hoarse with sleep, “Darling, what on ea-”

“I really fucking hate you.”

She turned her phone off and went to the kitchen to feed the cats, who were starting to get mouthy, and get herself a brandy.

Warming the snifter of Lustau between her palms, letting the apricot and molasses scents open and the finishing note of nutmeg develop, Brede leaned against her sink and stared at nothing, seeing Jonathan. 

For someone so very good-looking and tall, Jonathan Pine had a gift for being overlooked. A gift like hell, she snorted into her glass, it was a fucking talent that he had perfected over the years. Brede didn’t know if it was him stifling his aura, or moving in perfect sync with the currents of reality, or pulling in his magnetic field, but he could all but disappear into any role or background, respected yet invisible within his graceful efficiency until he chose not to be.

Then, when he needed to, or wanted to, he let the banked fires inside of him catch a whiff of oxygen and he would  _ ignite _ .

At times burning everything around him to ash.

In the Roosevelt Ballroom, he had only flared. 

Working the craft cocktail station had been a coup, courtesy of her old friend Corky, who after a mere year in New Orleans already had his finger on the pulse and his fist around the balls of the hospitality industry. Not an easy thing in a city where you were barely considered a local if both of your parents hadn’t been born in the Parish. 

Hell, her family had been there for generations and even she was treated as a stranger for the first few months she had been back in town. 

Brede was in her element that night, reminding her of her family’s old banquet hall, where she had waitressed as a teenager, before begging her father to let her bartend. A crowded room. Heaven and hell all at once, roaring with happy noise, the clink of glasses, ice rattling, and the heavy, heady smells of food, hard liquor, bodies, perfume, weed, and cigarette smoke hanging on the clothes of those who had just come back inside, the anticipation of sex or dancing or both, and the faint bits of music that could be heard from the predictable but talented Dixieland band set up in a corner, was the ocean she had learned to swim in.

All the time flirting with industry types, making her variation on the Lion’s Tail - The Tiger’s Tail, the name a little hokey but the drink  _ solid _ , substituting Cajun spiced rum she flavored herself for pimento dram, Peychaud’s bitters for Angostorra, and satsuma wheel instead of an orange twist - collecting numbers and business cards, giving out invites for the private, late-night cocktail event at The Hat on Sunday, she was focused and in the zone. 

_ Reine de son Domaine _ .

Everyone was ready to pass a good time.

Then, and she would swear to this to her dying day, there was something out of the corner of her eye like a light going on, and she turned to look, worried some drunk ass line cook had knocked over one of the purple, gold, and green candle arrays they had on the table. As if open flame around this crowd outside of a kitchen was ever going to be a good idea. 

And there he was.

Jonathan fucking Pine. 

Johnny, when she wanted to get his goat, prove she wasn’t afraid of his perfect, British reserve.

Mister, at other times.

Looking to her with that cool, slit-eyed, tight-lipped glance that he used to size people up when they couldn’t see him. Of course, she had always been able to see him. His disappearing Englishman voodoo bullshit had never worked on Brede.

That said, she was proud as the devil of herself for pouring that Balvanie, for her hand being steady, for being able to turn away from him and get back to it. 

She was going to kill Corky with her bare hands. Or at least smash the windows of his newly refurbished French Quarter condo.

Knowing a little brandy wasn’t going to be enough to put her back to sleep, and not wanting to take anything stronger, she went to put on her running clothes, even though her feet were still aching from standing service the night before, determined to sweat Jonathan out of her system, or at least make herself tired enough to go to bed and be certain not to dream.

  
  



End file.
